One may call the world the
body of God, the shadow of God, the son of God. The spirit of God is in
all that exists. It is ridiculous to ascribe inspiration to special
persons only; every one ought to be a Christ, a prophet, an inspired
man. The human spirit, being a breath of God, does not perish; our
spirit, separated from its body by death, enters into a connection with
some other body. Thus Edelmann taught a kind of metempsychosis. What he
taught had been thoroughly and ingeniously said in France and England;
but from a German theologian, and that with such eloquent coarseness,
with such a mastery in expatiating in blasphemy, such things were
unheard of. But as yet the faith of the church was a power in Germany!"
From Edelmann the transition is easy to the reckless and vicious Bahrdt.
This man stands among the first of those who have brought dishonor upon
the sacred vocation. What Jeffreys is to the judicial history of
England, Bahrdt is to the religious history of German Protestantism.
Whatever he touched was disgraced by the vileness of his heart and the
satanic daring of his mind.
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